You add level adjustment to animal hit dice to find out how worthless your character is. So a level adjustment of three combined with an animal hat has three hit dice would mean that you were six levels worth of worthless, or as bad as a level one character in a level seven party...
Bats have some interesting abilities and insectivorous bats should be predatory.
Dire rats are decent...
Baboons are quite humaonid, some D.M.s would let you get away with more as an animal if you are humanoid and completely ignore how capable things like ravens are... On the other hand, an infected lycanthrope might be less familiar, no, no, wait, lycanthropes are supernaturally familiar with their alternate form, it is part of the curse, to become mentally more like the animal than the humanoid or giant.
You could be a cat and spend your nights slaughtering townsfolk...
Eagles are good fliers.
Lizards balance well if you want to be a swash-buckler...
Owls are very stealthy, a were-owl arcane trickster might work...
Toads are amphibious, which is obviously the greatest ability ever, you should totally become a toad!
Weasels have attach, which could be interesting if you worked on your bite attack...
I am not sure if lycanthropes are affected by negative ability scores. It uses the term 'increased' a lot, which would suggest not, but the alternative is a bat waddling across the ground dragging a 5000 pound cart with its orcish 22 strength...
There is also a matter of alignment, which is basically up to the D.M. to assign as animals do not have alignments...
I'm thinking of playing a werewizard. Starting at level 4, with the natural lycanthrope LA 3 and 1 level of wizard, I could switch between some sort of combat-oriented animal and utilitarian caster. I wouldn't be that great at combat, and I'd be set back with wizarding, but I think it'd be fun to play.
...
Ok, I got it: a melee werewizard with nature-oriented spells who considers himself a ranger. Also, he plays guitar just because. BAM! Five classes in one! Only without most of the bonuses!
EDIT: Gah, I can't find the answer to this anywhere: Do I get skill points for the levels lost to LA?
EDITUS SECONDUS: If I take the physical stats of the animal my alternate form is, do they ever change as they would when I'm getting to higher levels?
EDITUS TRIUS: Ah, I see. Physical abilities are increased by the creature's modifiers. Does that mean the stats themselves are increased, or is it the modifiers are increased?
EDITUS QUATRUS: Um... So... I get three levels worth of animal and one of wizard, with skills as if those were both player classes. But when it says that the animal's Hit Die affect saving throws and BAB, where exactly would I find those? I can't find the correct numbers in the animal descriptions.
EL FIFTH EDIT-O: Any racial skill adjustments of the lycanthrope’s base race and its animal form (but not conditional adjustments) are added to its skill modifiers in any form.
A lycanthrope adds skill points for its animal Hit Dice much as if it had multiclassed into the animal type. It gains skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die of the animal form.
Does this mean that I get both the skill points from the LA levels as well as the animal's skill bonuses?
LE SIXTH EDIT: If I were to take both the Silent Spell and Still Spell feats, would I be able to cast spells in my animal form? Or is that banned in the same vein as Natural Spell? Baguette.
SIEBTEN BEARBEITEN: What animal does everyone think I should be a were of?
Alright. I'll slowly fill in the blanks on this one as I go with edits.
1. You never get skill points from level adjustments.
2. No. Ability modifiers are set in stone after character creation. No one gets +2 to an ability at level 4 ever.
3. Your abilities are increased/decreased by the ability modifiers of that creature. A cat for example has (Str 3, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7) so the modifiers when in a werecat/cat form are (-4 Str, +2 Dex, -4 Int, +1 Wis). Can't recommend cats.
4. Animals have good advancement on Fort/Ref saves and poor advancement on Will saves. They also have medium BAB.
5. You start with 6*(2+Int) as a level 1 wizard with that race. No skill points for the LA.
6. This adds a spell level modifier and would make it harder to cast in animal form.
7. Badger. Badger. Badger. (Modifiers are pretty good for a level 1 animal)
2: there are some inherited templates and such. The relevant point though is that classes and racial hit dice(but not level adjustment) stack for the purposes of determining your feats and ability increases, a level three wizard were-rat gains +1 to one of their ability scores for being fourth(three wizard plus one rat) level, they do not gain one at their fourth wizard level because they already got their first one a level earlier...
3a: Lycathropy does not appear to affect intelligence and charisma and appears to add a fixed +2 to wisdom. There is also room to debate as to whether or not negative ability scores come into play.
3b: With 3 attacks and some nice skills a were-cat could make a decent rogue...
4: animals have variable good saves, it is generally fortitude and reflex, but dire animals are good on all three base saves. You basically need to calculate the animal's base saves from scratch to figure out their base saves. See
animal. It is the same as a normal class with respect to nothing carrying over between classes...
5: Take wizard at first level, then take animal levels until you run out of animal hit dice that you need to take. The animal's class skill list is only what is listed in their skills entry, So a
badger only gets balance, escape artist, listen, and spot. But they can take cross class skills just as any other class can... You then add your level adjustment onto that to see what level you count as. A natural lycanthrope has a level adjustment of +3, so with a one hit die animal you would have one class level, one animal level, and a +3 adjustment making you an effective 5th level character. I am far from certain, but I do not believe that the campaign is currently accepting fifth level characters...
6: I believe that druids are allowed to take silent and still and cast as bears, but those feats have drawbacks...
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Topic: D&D 3.5- Western Marches: dead and gone (RIP) (Read 306282 times)